Thursday 28 February 2019

Rough conditions return.

The geomagnetic field was very disturbed overnight, with Kp = 7 for a time.  Aurora was forecast to be visible as far south as central UK (none was noticed, thought the weather was slightly hazy due to high pressure):

Image: IRF, Kiruna.

Image: NOAA.

As is usually the case, disturbances of this magnitude generate very energetic electrons, preventing rather than assisting winter night-time propagation at 14MHz.  At 23:48UT, all propagation on that band ceased, the last station being TF3HZ (inside the auroral oval).

It's interesting to note the signal from LU7AA:

On this occasion, the peaks in signal correspond to the commencement of sharp southerly dips in the vertical magnetic component, and the early recovery phases from the same events. 

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